What if people wont tell you anything about themselves? Ruyu said.
When people are your friends, they will tell you things. And when youre with friends, you can also tell them about yourself, Moran said. She wished Ruyu could understand that neither she nor Boyang would press Ruyu about her past. The truth was, Moran had believed even before Ruyus arrival that no matter what kind of a past Ruyu had, once she lived among them, she would become less of an orphan.
Ruyu watched a bug move on the water, its slender limbs leaving barely perceptible traces. For a brief moment she found the insect interesting, but when she turned her eyes away, she forgot about it. Why is Sister Shaoai always angry? she asked. She hates me being here, doesnt she?
Moran looked agonized. No, she doesnt. Shes just upset at the moment.
Ruyu looked back at the water, but the bug was gone. She did not know the name of the insect; in fact, she had never spent much time looking at any bug, bird, or tree. Her grandaunts lived strictly indoors and only left the apartment when necessary; their home, pristinely kept, did not participate in the holidays with decorations of any kind, or in the seasons with plants on the windowsills; thick curtains, always drawn, kept the weather at a distance.
When Ruyu did not question further, Moran felt pained. She wished she could explain better to Ruyu Shaoais situation: she had been active in the democratic protest early in the summer and was waiting for her verdict, which shed learn once school started. She hadnt been a leader in the protest but would nevertheless face disciplinary action from the university; nobody knew whether this would be a general or a severe political warning, a suspension of her university study, or, worse, expulsion. Morans parents, when they talked about Shaoai, worried that her dismissiveness about her future would not help her; they did not say much, but Moran knew that they, and other neighbors too, wished Shaoai would recant the statement she had posted on the school bulletin board the day after the massacre, calling the government a breeding farm of fascists. But these things, Morans parents had warned her, were not to be discussed outside their house.
Moran turned around instinctively, but apart from a few pedestrians farther off on the sidewalk, she did not see any suspicious loiterers eavesdropping on them. I know Sister Shaoai looks unfriendly sometimes, she said. But trust me, she is a good person.
People asked her to trust them all the time, Ruyu thought, as though it never occurred to them that by so pleading, they had already proved themselves untrustworthy. Her grandaunts had never asked her to trust them, and, unfamiliar with the concept, she had once been deceived by the use of the phrase: a girl in first grade had often begged to be taken to her apartment; her grandaunts did not like visitors, Ruyu had explained, but the girl had pleaded to be trusted and promised not to tell a soul about the visit. After a while Ruyu had acquiesced, yet the day after the visit everyone in the class seemed to have learned something about her home, and even a couple of teachers came to ask her about her grandaunts books. But to have been betrayed by someone unworthy was less humiliating than having perturbed her grandaunts. They had waited for a few days before saying, as though making a passing comment, that they did not much care for the friend Ruyu had brought home. After that Ruyu had never allowed herself to be befriended by anyone.
How can you be certain that Sister Shaoai is a good person? Ruyu said.
Moran watched the boys splashing in the lake. It agonized her that she could not make Ruyu see the real Shaoai: when Moran and Boyang had been the boys age, Shaoai had been the one to take them to the lake, throwing them into deeper water to make them paddle, laughing at them when they swallowed water, yet all the time she had been within an arms reach. Even if Shaoai was not a nurturing kind of person, both Moran and Boyang knew her to be a reliable friend. Have you heard the saying that the longer a road is, the more one is to learn about a horses stamina; the more time passes, the better one gets to see another persons heart? Moran said. I think by and by you will know Sister Shaoai better.
Ruyu smiled. Why would I, the thin smile said, want to know Shaoai better? Morans face turned red: the wordless dismissal, not of herself but of someone she respected and admired, made her more diffident in front of Ruyu than ever.
When are we going back? Ruyu said, indicating the setting sun.
Moran was disappointed with herself. She knew Ruyu did not trust her. Why should she? Moran thought as she pedaled her bicycle through an alley, so used to Ruyus weight on the rear rack that for a moment she forgot that it was her usual habit to chatter on while pedaling Ruyu around. Moran did not like unfinished conversations; for her, life was a series of ideal moments, all comprehensible, sometimes with small difficulties but always with a larger dose of joy. She did not like finding herself in a murky situation which she could not explain to another person, yet there was the loyalty toward Shaoai, whose trouble Moran had been told to keep to herself. If she stopped pedaling and better clarified Shaoais anger, would Ruyu understand it?
5
When Morans phone rang early Saturday morning, she dreaded taking the call, and listened while the answering machine clicked on. No message was left, and a minute later, the phone rang again. It was not yet six oclock, too early for anything but calamity. Moran picked up the call and heard both her parents voices on the other end, and for a moment she could not concentrate while her mother talked about trivialities. And you, her father said when her mother seemed to have run out of small talk. How are you?
Good.
Your voice sounds hoarse, her mother said. Did you catch a cold?
Only dry, Moran said. I was sleeping.
Listen, her father said, and Moran felt a twinge of panic, as he was one who preferred listening to being listened to. Were sorry to be calling so early. But we just heard that Shaoai passed away ten days ago.
Moran asked her parents to hold on for a second, and closed the bedroom door. She lived alone in a rental, and she was used to and she was certain her house was also used to her carrying out a life filled with everyday noises but not human conversations. Beyond the closed door was the uncluttered space where, other than a few pieces of impersonal furniture from IKEA, a small collection of objects kept her company: a single silver vase, to which she often forgot to offer flowers; a pair of metal bookends shaped like an old man in a top hat and billowing raincoat, bending low on his cane; a stack of handmade paper, thick, sepia-toned, too beautiful to write on; and a reproduction of a Modigliani painting a portrait of a certain Mme. Zborowska, whose eyes, under heavy, sleepy lids, looked almost blind in their pupil-less darkness. None of these objects had come into Morans life with specific meanings; she had picked them up here and there while traveling, and had allowed herself to form an attachment to them because they were only souvenirs of places that did not belong to her, which she would never see again. In return, by quietly closing the door, she protected these things she loved from the intrusion of an early morning phone call. Later she would not once think of them as burdened witnesses of a death from a distant past.
We thought you should know right away, her father said.
It was not an unexpected death, she wanted to tell her parents; a relief for all, she wanted to assure them, but the words would be clichés her parents and their old neighbors would have already exchanged. Her parents had called to hear different words, and yet Moran had only silence to offer.
We thought of paying a visit of condolence, her mother said. But what can we say to Shaoais mother? What would you say to her?
Moran flinched. Unlike her father, who rarely confronted her, her mother was able to turn a simple narrative into a question that demanded an answer. I would think, for everybodys good, its wise not to visit, Moran said, being careful with her words so that she would not open the door to more questioning.
But that makes us coldhearted. Imagine someone in her position.
It was hard enough for her mother to have an absentee daughter; to add, on top of that, another mothers pain of losing a daughter whod been more than half dead the past twenty-one years? Dont imagine, Moran said.
But how can one stop thinking about these things? I understand that Im more fortunate than Shaoais mother, but what if you hadnt got involved in the case in the first place? You would have been living in Beijing, and at least our family would have stayed together. I know you think of me as selfish, but do you see my point?
No, I dont think of you as selfish.
I hope you understand that a mother has to be selfish.
Ever so expectedly, the phone line, cracking just a little, spoke of her mothers tears and her fathers reticence. They were in separate rooms, she knew, holding two receivers, because it was easier for them not to see each others eyes when they were talking to her. I dont suppose we should discuss these things now, Moran said. See, it upsets you.
Why shouldnt I be upset? Shaoais mother at least knows who killed her daughter, but weve never known what took our daughter away from us.
Nobody knows what happened to Shaoai, Moran said.
But it was Ruyu. It had to be her. It could only be her. Am I wrong?
Her parents must have often wondered about this between themselves, but they had never once asked Moran. Why ask now, when silence, already in place, should be left untouched; even death does not suffice as a pretext to disturb the past. Nobody knows what happened, Moran said again.
But you did know. You covered it up for her, didnt you?
Morans father coughed. You understand, Moran, that your mother is asking not because we want to blame you, he said. Nobody can go back and change anything, but your mother and I, you see its hard for us when things dont make sense.
Where does one begin, Moran thought, to make sense of anything? The desire for clarity, the desire not to live in blindness these desires are not far from the desire to deceive: one has to be like a sushi chef, cutting, trimming, slicing, until ones life or ones memory of that life is transformed into presentable bites. Lets change the topic, shall we? she said. I was wondering what youd think of going to Scandinavia for a holiday next summer. I heard its beautiful there in June.